HP: Best and Worst Laptop Brands

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LAPTOP Editors
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March 24, 2016 05:04 am

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HP fell from third to sixth overall this year because some really poor products brought its reviews score down to near the bottom. (Only Toshiba did worse in this category.) In 2015, HP had a number of very disappointing systems that suffered from poor battery life, including its Spectre x2 2-in-1, Envy 13t and EliteBook 745 G3. While HP has some of the best-looking systems in the industry, its lackluster products and poor tech support suggest that the company is heading in the wrong direction.

Design (14/15)

Like a designer during fashion week, HP isn't afraid of showing a variety of looks. The company does have a few laptops that are Apple-like in their silver-colored presentation (the Pavilion x360 11 and the Envy 13t). But some, like the HP Spectre x360, escape the stereotype by virtue of being undeniably stunning in their lightweight, silvery glory. HP adds some brawn to its beauty, ensuring that the sleek-looking EliteBook Folio 1040 G2 and EliteBook Folio 1020 Special Edition can pass MIL-SPEC 810G durability tests including those for extreme temperatures, dust and vibrations. Laptops that don't get the aluminum treatment get a splash of color, like the cerulean 15t Touch and the frost-white Pavilion x2 10t.

Reviews (16/30)

Last year, HP was tied with Acer in seventh place for product ratings, but the brand has moved down two places to a disappointing ninth-place finish in this category. Both the EliteBook Folio 1020 Special Edition and the EliteBook 745 G3 earned 2.5-star ratings due to their dismal battery lives — a weakness shared by a number of the HP systems we reviewed this year. The Spectre x360 13t, however, was one of the best 2-in-1s we saw from any company in 2015.

Tech Support (17/20)

Once second-best, HP's customer support fell down the ladder this year, as its agents handed us incorrect answers over the telephone and via live chat. One agent incorrectly told us to uninstall Windows 10 to solve a minor issue — a problem the company told us it is addressing with better training. HP's online support database had the answers we were looking for, but we had to dig deep to find those solutions. On the positive side, the agents running HP's Facebook and Twitter accounts pointed us toward helpful answers.

Warranty (4/5)

HP also pays for the shipping when you send in a laptop to be serviced. The company blankets all of its systems with a standard one-year limited warranty that isn't voided when you upgrade your RAM or hard drive.

Software (3/5)

HP has been including questionably useful software from CyberLink — specifically, PowerDVD and YouCam for media management — in its machines. The company also has been offering 25GB of Dropbox space for six months on a few models, including the Pavilion x360 11 and the Envy 13t — which is nice to have, even if it's for a limited time.

On consumer laptops, you will likely see bloatware such as Snapfish and Candy Crush Soda Saga. Business systems get handy apps like HP Recovery Manager and SimplePass (for the fingerprint scanner).

Innovation (5/10)

HP didn't break a lot of new ground in the past year, but it did make credible entries into established categories. The company introduced some attractive, bend-back laptops in the Spectre X360 13t and 15t. It also jumped on the detachable bandwagon, offering a sexy Surface Pro alternative in the Spectre x2. In 2016, HP is adding a built-in 3M privacy-screen feature to some of its business laptops — an industry first.

Value and Selection (14/15)

Like Dell and Lenovo, HP tries to cover every laptop market segment, from low-cost Windows laptops, to Chromebooks, to mainstream systems, to premium 2-in-1s. The company offers a rich variety of business laptops, from the small-to-medium-size-business-oriented ProBooks, to enterprise-centric EliteBooks, to high-end ZBook graphics workstations. HP's line of Spectre 2-in-1s stands out for its attractive design and long battery life. The company has dipped its toe into the gaming market, though its handful of entertainment offerings aren't as powerful or as functional as those from the competition.

You can get some very inexpensive HP laptops, starting with the $210 Stream 13. The company offers some great values: Its least-expensive 1080p Windows laptop, the Pavilion 15z, goes for $439, while the very attractive Spectre x360 13t starts at just $899. If you buy through HP.com, you can configure some laptops to order.

How HP Can Improve

HP needs to focus on building laptops with longer battery life. You can make great-looking products with strong performance, but if they run out of juice in the middle of the day, users won't be happy. The company needs to offer more fresh ideas, rather than just building on the functionality and designs pioneered by competitors like Apple, Lenovo and Microsoft. It should also back its products with more accurate phone support.

Best & Worst Laptop Brands

I bought HP 15 ay079tx a month back...Now the laptop keeps on freezing and hanging for a second every 10 secs...
I urge all not to buy HP laptop...
Please avoid using HP as they have pathetic Customer Service

I purchased on8-21-16 an HP 27 all-in-one touchscreen with 2TB hard drive computer from costco great deal, I brought it home and updated it, Windows updated it with windows 10 anniversary edition .. Needless to say the computer froze I'm not able to use it or get in it ...I'm thinking Google should have taken their expert designers to HP and show them how it's done....One happy customer

Worst compute I have ever owned..I work from my computer and it seems like eveyday their are updates and it does it on its own.Today was the woerst 144 updates took hours could not do any work I needed to do..and this is after updates all week..taking them all out of my office and replacing them..

HP's are horrible I bought one had it for a year barely used it because I had a phone that could do everything. The HP had so much problems out of nowhere and now I can't even log into it. I just bought another laptop, didn't learn and got another HP it's only been couple months and my laptop keeps automatically updated and keeps turning on and off its useless! I hate HP products

I recommend never to buy HP laptops please people. very bad experience. whenever i work or in the middle of some important work it just crashes and shows some blue screen error. buy dell or alienware laptops. i mean dell is best. my friends have dell they work superflous. i have this hp laptop 5th gen core i3,4gb ram,1tb hdd, but very cheap quality plastic body. since i had bought it never have a good experience. pls people believe me do not buy hp even going for the premium range just buy alienware but NOT HP

After reading many bad reviews here, I can only guess that people mostly write reviews when things go wrong. So, I'll tell my story. My Dad and I both got a Pavillion Entertainment PC in 2008. His stopped updating after a few years due to a virus. My friend and I worked on it but could not get it to accept updates and I never trusted it after that. Mine on the other hand is still chugging along! It's a little slow and I have to do regular utility maintenance, but I'm still using it daily. I want to buy a replacement, but have read some things I don't like about the newer models. As far as customer service, I have always gotten the best treatment. And my HP all-in-one printer has been a pistol a couple of times, but the rep helped me and together we solved the issues. Got a good deal on ink too! So, I'm thinking about the new Pavillion as I already have a notebook. Wish me luck!

I sadly need to replace my wife's HP laptop due to age. It has always been a good unit but when I bought it the 'new' windows Vista was just becoming more common than windows XP. I think I will replace it with another HP,(budget and sale price allowing. 9 years of good service from a $400 laptop is way better than any of the other electronic devices in our experience.

I've brought HP Pavilion DM3 in 2010. It's broken(mainboard dead) one month after the warranty expired (1 year + 1 month). It cost me about 1/3 of the device price. I paid a half price(a half when its done)for the repairement sevice. I took 3 months without any notice from the hp service Centre, So I canceled the service, got my money back. Sold the part(lcd, keyboard, ram, hdd, case, etc) online. Then I bought Asus A42J in 2011, it stays alive until now 2016. I have changed the battery twice the LCD once, but it still good to use. So I will never buy the HP product again.

Received an HP 2000 Notebook a few years back as a gift. It is, by far, the worst piece of tech that I've ever had the misfortune of owning. It has had problems with connecting to the internet since day 1, the touchpad likes to disable two-finger scrolling every few months or so, and now something has gone wrong inside the laptop itself and the audio is making an awful crackling noise every few seconds. Do not waste your money on HP products.

I've owned one HP laptop bought in 2012. I'm never buying another HP laptop again. 2 months after the 1 year warranty expired, the fan broke. It was making this awful grinding sound. I bought a new fan and some Arctic Silver 5 thermal grease to replace the fan. Everything went well, until the Arctic Silver grease dried out 6 months later and needed to be replaced. The same was true 6 months after that. The moment that the grease dried out, the core temperature skyrocketed, so the computer was unusable. Pretty bad if you're in the middle of a college class. I bought Arctic Cooling (not the same brand) MX-2 grease to replace the Arctic Silver grease, and everything seemed to be fine. Then I got the bright idea to upgrade my processor from an AMD A6-4400M to a A10-4600M. This rendered the Arctic MX-2 grease unstable and the temperature fluxed constantly. Also, one of the hinges completely cracked during the 3 years I used this computer and had to be glued with epoxy.

My advice: don't waste your money on an HP computer with a 35W AMD processor. Between the over-heating and the cheap unreliable build quality, it's just not worth it in the long run. Oh, and the warranty might send you a refurbished computer, so you might want to assess other options to fix your computer (I'm not saying to fix it yourself).

I have never had any problems with HP. A good stand up company. I use an Omen 15 as my daily driver and have had a Compaq Presario, and HP Notebook 2000. All have worked flawlessly. My Omen's linternals are great (16GB 1866 crucial, 512 Samsung 950, GTX 960m 81.2% asic). Quality parts, impeccable design, easy software. One complaint is bios limiting, especially for overclocking! Otherwise I recommend HP, and would like to see the company ranked higher.

BE AWARE OF HP, Guys, HP is a stick up brand all the way. I would request everyone before purchasing any HP product please review the feedback and experienced of users on facebook page and HP blog/forum. HP sticking up users both in product and service as well, Specially in Asia specific and more specifically in India. STICKING UP IN PRODUCT: HP is making money and sticking up customers by selling poor grade base materials and lower brand internal components. Laptop/Notebook of HP are nice in looking but ugly in performance. They are selling business class laptop on higher price as gaming laptop where the material is too thin and not heat resister at all. As per their specification they are providing configuration but the internal components are HDD/RAM etc are lower brand which are very dull in performance. STICKING UP IN SERVICE: Service of HP is worse and more pathetic than it's product. They have lot's of hidden home made policies to charge customers for the service even during warranty period. In india you have to beg to avail proper service from HP. HP simply trust on money making, they have no duties, aim or goal towards their customer.

I bought My hp laptop for about $600. It is horrible. I have had to send it back 3 times in under two years and each time it returns fixed but with a new problem. Each time I send it out it is gone for at least a month which doesn't work for me, being a student. It is incredibly laggy, even just with 1 internet tab open and claims to be using anywhere from 30% to 99% of cpu at any given time (when being used or even when no programs are being manually ran). Don't ever buy one of these, they are a waste of money and energy. Incredibly frustrating.

Purchased a mid range unit. Two hours after startup no Wi-Fi, came and went for a day then didn't have any connection to router. Tech support tried to tell me it was my router or ISP, After I told him I had a 2011 model pavilion i3 that had 4 or 5 bars of signal and was further away. Made 21 calls to support hung up on 3 times and no one could solve the problem. Poor quality, service and less than honest business practice. Last HP I will ever buy and I've used them since the early 90's. HP has become a drop shipping company for computers' made in chine and delivery of your purchase take forever. But they billed my credit card the next day after online order.

Bought one from Walmart for 499.00. It really sucked. I had to send it back. I need a laptop with a good memory, I don't care about cloud. I don't care about bloat. No games. I work off line. No more than 500.00. I like to write and look at movies on it. I use it like a DVD player .

Firstly, I will try to provide fair and objective comments based on my experience with HP products.
If your laptop is used for work or plays an important role in your day-to-day activity, then going after HP is a risky decision.

I had used 3 HP laptops (different model), every single one of them had manufacturing defect within the first 6 months since purchase. The last one was X360 Spectre (13") where it had a faulty charging port (laptop won't charge) and two malfunctioning USB3.0 ports since the first day I bought the product. Thereafter I made decision to avoide HP laptop. There are few problems observed here : (1) HP's manufacturing quality is consistently poor for some reason. High odds of getting defects on every single HP laptops used is unheard of with other vendor. (2) HP will charge you the costs associated with repairing your laptop. In my case I paid for packaging, shipping cost and data backup. They will send across a courier to pick up your laptop (if aksed) at no extra cost, but packaging cost and protection are still udner your own liability. Data backup is a mandatory requirement (according to HP) but again it is your out-of-pocket expense. If you attempt to do it yourself you will be wanred by HP that warranty maybe void. (3) The Service Centre (which is based in India) is hardly anything professional, you are often kept on line hold for 'transfer' and/or 'checking details from system' for as long as 20-30min whilst you pay for every minute you waste on the phone line. I won't tell you NOT to buy HP as their recent products do look nice, but that's about all they have to offer, look. You are warned to exercise discrete caution when buying HP laptop and be patient with long and painful process that might soon become reality after your exciting purchase.

Absolutely horrible experience not only with latest HP Spectre x360 laptop but Customer service as well.
Laptop that costs very good amount of money kept breaking up 3 times for short period of time. Wi fi is not stable, problems with touchpad, was unable to turn it on.
It takes forever to get call back from Case managers, as well as find reasonable solution. 1 out of 10 for product quality and customer support.

I have owned many HP computers. Some where not very good and some were phenomenal.

In 2005, HP came out with the Livestrong Computer. I loved that machine. It had everything you could want and came in the perfect size to operate on the airplane. But it had one problem: the hinges on this model were not designed well and eventually wore out.

The HP Elitebook 850w is also a very great computer. It is heavy, like it was made in a soviet tractor factory. But it was great in every other way. FABULOUS Screen (can't get as good a screen these days. Don't know why). FAST FAST FAST. Handled everything I threw at it.

And HP's support has always made me love them. In fact, I prefer HP because of their warranty service. I buy their warranty and in essence no matter what I do to that computer -- they fix it. I have used it every time and I am so pleased with it.

recently bought a HP 15-ac152tu and I could say it does have some punch to it as handles gaming quite well and it is quite fast due to its SSHD paired with an i3 and 4GB ram...in general I'm happy I purchased a HP laptop instead of the Acer variant

HP- worst Laptops. I bought a Laptop 17" Pavillion. This Laptop cannot be used as a Laptop. Within few months I found that once I fully shutdown the computer it is running inside until the battery fully drains out. when I open it next time. No battery power at all. If I remove the battery and put back after shutting down then the battery power remains. I sent to HP for repairs but they could not fix it properly. One or two times it was working well and then the old storey again. People who repair are not competent enough to identify and repair the issue. I have bought about 8 HP computers for the last ten years. Earlier Laptops got power issues where battery wont get charged after few years. I bought a ACER desktop at the same time with HP Desktop. Acer is working better than HP. I cannot recommend HP Laptops at all now.

I used Hp printerofficejet 6700, its worse product ever. Do not purchase Hp it will not let you use the refill ink, who had that much money to buy brand new ink for each time for all four colors.
It just expensive and useless, I recommand not to buy Hp printer, use Canon its better price and works with refill ink perfect for 3, 4 years so far.

Worst laptops. Worst design. Fitting RAM an d SSD requires complete rape of laptop. It's not like opening back cover and fit things in it. HP designers need a kick on their butts for designing this piece of trash. Will never buy HP products again.

worst experience ...... twice they have replaced the mother board and 7-8 times engineer has visited my home but laptop is still not working.
And its only 2 months old....want to get my laptop replaced.no more servicing or change of parts.

By far the HP Envy is THE worst laptop I've ever owned! At age 63, I have had experience with many brands, including both PCs and MACs. The finger pad is an abomination. If I look at the screen instead of the finger pad I never know what will happen. What idiot designed that thing? Meanwhile the multiple home screens are thoroughly confusing and illogical. You never know what surprise will be next, as this psychotic device tries to think bad thoughts for you. Finally, it is slow, slow, slow. I bought this lemon 6 months ago because I wanted a 17-inch screen. What I got was poor performance laced with daily frustration. Going to have to cut my loss and dump this freak sooner than later. Beware if you are in the market for a computer.

Worst brand ever. Never going to buy HP laptop from now on. My old laptop from acer was much better than HP and never had such problems. I purchased HP pavilion ab-031tx on 30th October 2015 and on 28th November 2015 it stopped working. So it didn't even work for one full month such a shame. Its not even getting boot-up nor while i am plugging my AC adapter it's getting charged nor charging led in laptop is glowing. It's just lying like a dumb piece of plastic.

I was looking to buy a flyer red HP and wondered if I had it loaded with computer capabilities what would be the price range. Capabilities I mean like high GB and mb and all the ports to do almost what a rest top computer will do. Like print. Sincerely yours, Jeff.

I OWN THREE HP LAPTOPS. A NEW HP 15Z PAVILLION, AN OLDER HP DV4 AND AN HP 15 fo33wm. I like all three of them and they never give me any problems. I has an HP 15 r32wm red flyer that was bought new and had a faulty mouse pad that would randomly magnify the screen while typing. HP tech support was very, very thorough in identifying the problem thru remote assistance and didn't charge me a dime for hours of assistance. Finally they sent me a free shipping label and box to return the device for free repair. Also. I have two HP 4500 all in one printers. The carriage belt came off of one due to self refilled cartridges. I contacted HP and they sent me a new printer free of charge right away. I now use their Instant Ink Program that delivers ink to my door as my printer orders after sensing low ink. I have three busy stores on Ebay and could not operate them if not for Hp. Most people it seems complain about HP and other computers because they don't know how to truly set them up. Just taking any laptop right out of the box it is not ready to perform at its best, in my opinion. Any way everyone has their favorites but as far as my experience goes I don't need anything but HP.

HP is undoubtedly the best among the other laptop producers and Spectre 13 is one of their best products, ever produced!
Even Laptop Outlet is referring this as the most desirable laptops of 2015.http://www.laptopoutletblog.co.uk

I have had an HP Envy 15 for almost 2 years and it been a awesome laptop. Great design, performance, keyboard, and speakers. I don't like the battery life which is about 3 hours, the fan which is too loud, and the screen which sucks.

Just wanted to share my experience with HP products and services.I am having HP Envy J049TX which i bought in Oct 2013. Within a year i started facing issue with its Hings. As i am having 3 year full cover onsite warranty they changed the complete body and that was my first experience with HP Services.Let me tell you guys at that point i got to know my life is not going to be easy with HP support service. Those who did changed the body kept the rubber kit very loose. I asked them to fix it but they said it wont go anywhere. Within a week i don't know where i left those rubbers. I contacted HP and they sent me a new one. It was not a big issue, just wanted to let you know how careless those guys were. Now after couple of month it was the screen which again they replaced but with a very ugly incident which i don't wanna disclose here, and at that time they missed couple of screws :( (Later a guy from service center said, it happened and they don't know about it, which was expected actually ). My laptop battery was working perfectly and giving 3+ hour backup but suddenly my system stopped detecting it. An engineer visited it and said your battery is dead and as its warranty is over this cant be replaced. I said its ok. I tried to find it online and did not get it. I called HP store who gave me customer care no to confirm battery part number. Customer care asked to me to contact HP Store/Sale team. I contacted them on twitter. They suggested me couple of online like which were actually not useful. Then they send my query to some India office who again gave me a sales team number which was not working. Then he gave me a local service center number where i don't wanna go(considering my past experience). Still trying to find a battery with the help of HP guys without any success. Their Social Teams are really good but their customer service both onsite and the guys who call you are just something below average and sometimes just pathetic. Will never recommend HP to anyone anymore. Having a HP laptop is more than a Pain. Either you have enough time to chase them all week or you just give up. Thanks!!

I guess I like HP because of customer service. My pc was out of warranty when I upgraded to 8 from my 7. I hated it..hp tech tried to help me get my 7 back but couldn't. So they sent a prepaid box for me to send it to them. They had my 7 back and sent me my PC back and it didn't cost me a cent.